By Kennedy Maize Last year, connecting data centers to the PJM transmission grid cost customers in seven states “more than $4.3 billion in additional costs, with billions more still to come,” according to a new report from the Union on Concerned Scientists. The need to link data centers to the grid required “transmission upgrades made … More Do data centers shift costs to normal utility customers?
By Kennedy Maize Is the Trump administration making a mistake eyeing a major equity position in a large Nevada lithium mine? Is it pondering investing in a mineral that will soon see its current advantages overcome by market and technology developments? U.S. news media have been widely reporting that the White House is looking at … More Trump Li mine deal: What could go wrong?
By Kennedy Maize As a November deadline looms, discussions on a new plan for managing the Colorado River as it flows through seven Western states remain stalemated. Under the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the states in the basin must agree on a plan to share the water that provides for irrigation, electricity, and drinking water. … More Fate of the Colorado River Basin in play
By Henry Sokolski Only a handful of cases exist in which US officials have applied US criminal law against soldiers who have harmed noncombatants. As a result, mining national case law for guidance is unlikely to produce many useful insights. That said, the US military has discouraged inflicting unnecessary harm on noncombatants.13 But what of … More Guest commentary: Part 2, A Case for Military Proportionality: Disabling Nuclear Plants
By Henry Sokolski For nearly a decade, protecting civilians and civil objects from disproportionate military assaults has been a top priority of the Pentagon. Two Department of Defense secretaries from the first Donald Trump administration championed quantifying and reducing harm to civilians and civil objects. Under the Joe Biden administration, the Pentagon further focused on … More Guest commentary: Part 1, A Case for Military Proportionality: Disabling Nuclear Plants
By Kennedy Maize California is beginning a major redesign of statewide energy and climate policy. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a package of bills designed to deal with the state’s soaring electricity and gasoline prices and beefing up wildfire response, while preserving the Golden State’s aggressive stance on trying to contain climate change. As … More California legislative package aims at state’s energy-environment conundrum
By Kennedy Maize The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday (Sept. 18) approved a quartet of actions aimed at boosting the security and reliability of the U.S. electric grid as it faces challenges related to increasing load and operational complexity. FERC Chairman David Rosner said, “The reliability and security of our country’s electric system is essential … More FERC focuses on security, reliability, and forecasting large loads
By Kennedy Maize Solar developers have won big in a long-running dispute with legacy investor-owned utilities at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The court on Sept. 9 in the case – Solar Energy Industries Association, et al. v. FERC – upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s definition of how solar plus … More Solar + storage defeats IOUs in D.C. Circuit
By Kennedy Maize On August 26, President Trump assembled his administration’s leaders: cabinet secretaries, executive branch agency heads, and the like at the White House. It was billed as a “cabinet meeting,” implying a serious give-and-take among the top brass, focused on thorny issues. It was none of that. It was a cabinet meeting in … More Obese idol with the big orange head talks energy
By Kennedy Maize Are major changes ahead for the Department of Energy’s decades-long cleanup of the World War II Hanford weapons plant in Washington state? In a surprise move, on Monday (Sept. 8) the Energy Department fired the top official in charge of the massive, multi-billion-dollar environmental restoration project. Lawyer Roger Jarrell was serving as … More Wright fires Hanford cleanup boss, waffles on big changes